Saving And Storing Knowledge

What wisdom do you save — and where do you save it?
Knowledge is fluid. It changes and evolves over time. It gets adapted to new situations and you need to find ways to save the information so that you can access it on-demand when you need it the future.

Although I’m a “journal guy” and really enjoy writing down (and sketching out) my ideas in notebooks and Moleskine journals, that method is lousy for trying to find ideas as your archive grows. You have to search handwritten journals manually, page by page. While this can be fun and send you down a nostalgic-feels rabbit hole, it’s really inefficient when you have to find something you’ve written down in the past.

In recent years I’ve started keeping a few blank pages in the front of my journals and manually creating a table of contents for each new idea I add to the book. I write down the information I want to record, number the bottom of the page, and then I add a line item with the headline and page number in the front of the book. This way I can see what knowledge is saved in the book by glancing at just a page or two rather than having to page through the entire notebook.

The easiest way to find specific archived knowledge is by typing it out in a searchable electronic document

I try to be diligent about creating folders and documents within Google Docs to record original concept as well discovered knowledge that I want to be able to save and apply to ideas in the future.

I find this works really well for me because I can access Google Docs on virtually any device and any platform. Docs are available offline and when I’m connected to the internet. the big plus is that the recorded knowledge is now infinitely searchable by words and phrases.

Keeping Knowledge Sticky

One last way I personally like to save and store acquired knowledge and wisdom is to write them on yellow sticky notes. I don’t keep these to myself, I share them with you (and the rest of the world) by publishing them on www.BigYellowSticky.com. I write down one idea, concept, quote, or piece of advice on a sticky note every single day (I’ve been doing it since 2015) and publish it on the website, as well as social media. When I post the BYS to the website, I upload a photo of the handwritten sticky note and I type out the text of the sticky and publish it as a blog post. This means I can use the search box on the BYS website to find sticky note-sized bits of knowledge by any word or phrase. I also use keyword tags in the posts and can also search and sort entries by those tags, too.

What are some of your favorite ways to keep track of the knowledge you’ve gained over the years?

Connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message about your favorite method of recording, sorting, and searching all the important and notable wisdom you’ve encountered.